For 100 years, 2nd Lieutenant Eric Henderson was missing in action after being gunned down by German soldiers in the battle for the Western Front in the First World War. He was just 21 and serving in the London Regiment Post Office Rifles.

But last year, workmen digging to widen a road near the village of Voormezele, West Flanders, unearthed his remains. Unlike most soldiers’ bodies, they were able to identify him because a single silver coin engraved with his name and regiment lay next to him.

This week his great nieces, Sarah Foot, Lucy Cocup and Judith Leyman, will join locals, representatives from his old regiment and the British Embassy in Belgium to lay him to rest.

“Thank goodness they found him,” Mrs Foot, a 59-year-old school administrator from Twickenham, South West London, said. “I’m terrifically proud of him. I expect the whole thing will be overwhelming. To us he is Great Uncle Eric.”

Lieutenant Eric HendersonCredit:
Family photo album

As children, the sisters were told by their parents how their great uncle had died in June 1917 following one of the bloodiest days of that war.

The British Army detonated 450 tonnes of high explosives in 19 tunnels beneath the enemy at Wytschaete-Messines Ridge killing more than 10,000 Germans. The blast was so powerful it was heard in London.

Lieutenant Henderson was part of the British advance on the remaining German positions. However, as they approached the strategic White Chateau they came under fire from machine guns and Lieutenant Henderson was killed.

Mrs Foot added: “We believe he had been temporarily buried by the soldiers with him during that battle that day, possibly with the intention that they would return to give him a proper burial. But, in the quagmire that followed they either couldn’t find him or were unable to return.”

Robert Baden-Powell wrote to Lt. Henderson's family Credit:
Hulton Deutsch/Corbis Historical

In his letter he offered his “sincere sympathy”, adding that “the manner of your son’s death must be a source of pride and comfort to you.”

Referring to how as a boy Eric had been in the Scout movement, Mr Baden Powell added: “To the scouts of his old troop his memory will be an inspiration to carry out their duty at no matter what personal cost.” But, like their great grandparents, the sisters accepted that Great Uncle Eric was, like so many British soldiers, one of the fallen in that war whose remains would never be found.

So when a the Ministry of Defence official contacted them in December last year, they were astonished to discover that a gang of road diggers had found his remains.

“I was dressed as Christmas pudding for a fancy dress event at the primary school where I work when my sister, Lucy, called me with the news,” Mrs Foot continued.

“I broke down in tears. My sister said she had cried too. I know that Judith did as well. It seems bizarre to get upset, but it was because it was family. He went from a family legend to being very real and in sharp focus.”

While the sisters do not know why he was carrying the coin with his name on it, they cannot rule out the possibility that he or his family had had it made so he could be identified in the event of his death.

“I’ve been told that it was something he had done privately,” Mrs Foot, a mother of two whose parents died some years ago, added.

On Wednesday, when he is finally laid to rest, that same gold coin will be with him.